First nations

FOURTH NON-COMPLIANCE ORDER RENDERED BY THE CANADIAN HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL IN FIRST NATIONS CHILD WELFARE CASE

Two years after the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (“the Tribunal”) found Canada to be racially discriminating against over 165,000 First Nations children, the Tribunal has issued a fourth non-compliance order against the Federal government on February 1, 2018 (February 1, 2018 Order) or its failure to implement “immediate relief’ measures pending longer term reform. In its 2016 landmark ruling, the Tribunal found the Government of Canada in breach of the Canadian Human Rights Act for providing inequitable child welfare services to First Nations children and their families and for failing to implement Jordan’s Principle (Jordan’s Principle is a child-first initiative aiming to ensure that First Nations children has access to equitable and culturally appropriate services without delay). The Tribunal ordered a series of immediate measures to relieve the most egregious elements of the discrimination whilst longer term reform took place. It is astounding and unconscionable that two years and four non-compliance orders later, Canada has not complied even with the “immediate relief” measures let alone seriously engaged in long term reform.

In January 2016, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal released a historic decision finding that the Government of Canada was racially discriminating against over 165,000 First Nations children. Leading up to the decision, the Government of Canada spent more than 8 million dollars in legal fees trying to have the complaint dismissed on technical grounds. After the decision was issued, the Government of Canada tried to evade human rights scrutiny by arguing that reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples would best be achieved through consultations, rather than orders from the Tribunal. The authors argue that this distorted version of reconciliation is in fact incompatible with the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and domestic and international human rights law.

A year has passed since the closing event of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Ottawa — a brief moment of self-reflection that punctured through a stubborn, willful and long-standing national blindness.

The federal government knowingly discriminates against Indigenous children and their families. That discrimination is part of the colonial fabric that holds together Canadian political-economic development.

Thursday’s stunning Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) ruling, extending the scope of Indigenous rights to include the right to permanently control “land conferred by aboriginal title”, has the potential to transform the politics of resource extraction and development in Canada.

Thousands of residential school survivors gathered to share stories of their experiences in the schools, as well as the impact it has had on their lives afterwards.

During the gathering, the province of Alberta announced that residential school history will now be added to the province’s curriculum. When the audience’s cheers in reaction to the news quieted down, a key question lingered: how is it possible that this is not already part of collective knowledge across the country?

The Broadbent Institute is pleased to present the first in a series of blog posts by a range of Canadian academics and thought leaders critiquing the record of the Conservative government.

Stephen Harper once espoused the vision of a Canada built on “solid conservative values”, one that would prove “unrecognizable” to his then governing (Liberal) opponents. It is now almost a year since the Harper government’s most profound and concerted effort to craft that Canada: the passage of the two 2012 omnibus budget implementation bills—The Jobs, Growth, and Long Term Prosperity Act, and The Jobs and Growth Act; due time to assess the far-reaching implications of these bills.